Credit the Carleton Ravens for the Wisconsin Badgers getting this far?

In part, sure. Even the Badgers will say so.

The Ravens hosted Wisconsin last August and were rude hosts, stunning the NCAA squad 95-82, although anyone that follows CIS hoops can’t possibly be surprised by anything Carleton, with 10 titles in the past 12 years under the great Dave Smart, does. His nephew Rob stepped in for that game because Smart was with the Canadian national team.

The Ravens had already beaten Division I teams Towson and Texas Christian before tangling with Bo Ryan’s Badgers and nearly knocked off Syracuse — a team that went on to start its season 25-0 — a couple of days later, eventually falling 69-65.

Against Carleton, playing under FIBA rules and with a 24-second shot clock instead of the NCAA’s eye-glazing, 35-second version, the Badgers weren’t really sure what hit them and, playing for the first time that pre-season, certainly weren’t ready for the speed of their opponents.

It got members of the team thinking that maybe Ryan’s classic defence-first style could be tweaked to fit a roster that was capable of doing some intriguing things offensively.

“When we went to Canada, I was just telling everybody, like, ‘Why not? Why can’t we do the things that we want to do?’ ” point guard Traevon Jackson told ESPN Tuesday.

“We lost our first game to a really good team up there, but it was good to see the type of talent we had,” Jackson added.

Ryan agreed, thinking about contributions from Sam Dekker (28 points) and Frank Kaminsky, who went on to up his scoring average from 4.2 as a sophomore to 14.1 this season.

“I just felt something good,” Ryan said.

Taking a cue from the Ravens, Wisconsin sped up its attack this season and became far more dangerous.

“(Traevon) and Sam kind of talked about that before the season on how we were going to change the culture,” Kaminsky said.

“We mixed in offence this year.”

And if that new formula results in the Badgers being the last team standing next Monday, they’ll remember it all started in Canada.

TOUGH LUCK FOR ACHONWA

If Natalie Achonwa is to finally win an NCAA title, it will come while she is on the sidelines.

Achonwa, a 6-foot-3 senior from Guelph whom some consider Canada’s best-ever female basketball player, will miss the women’s Final Four after tearing her ACL.

She has led Notre Dame (36-0) to four straight Final Fours and scored 19 points, along with 15 rebounds before getting hurt in Monday’s regional final win over Baylor.

She had earlier scored 25 and then 23 points. Knowing immediately she was hurt, Achonwa screamed at her teammates to win the game as she left for the locker room, to great applause from the Notre Dame crowd. She received another ovation when she returned to watch the end of the game and then cut down the net.

“Natalie has been an extremely valuable contributor to our success, not only this season but throughout her career, and that won’t change,” said Notre Dame head coach Muffet McGraw.

“While she may not be in uniform, her voice will be heard loud and clear in the locker room, on the bench and in the huddle. I know that our team is going to continue to feed off her energy, passion and leadership as we head into the Final Four.”

Achonwa was the youngest player on the 2012 Canadian Olympic team and is considered a major part of the program going forward.

STAR-POWERED DEPTH

One of the benefits of having a boat-load of star recruits lining up to sign every year is that, in case something goes wrong, there’s a lot of talent waiting to step up.

When Kentucky's Willie Cauley-Stein got hurt and Dakari Johnson had some early hiccups against Michigan, little-used Marcus Lee — merely a McDonald’s All-American, Jordan Brand game participant and 25th overall in his class — was there to step up.

Lee, a 6-foot-9, jump-out-of-the-gym athlete, would have been an impact player on just about any other team, but averages 2.4 points and 1.5 rebounds for the Wildcats. Before scoring 10 points, grabbing eight rebounds and blocking two shots, energizing his team with his big put-back dunks in his 15 minutes, Lee had played just 18 minutes — total — in Kentucky’s previous 16 games. He had not played 15 minutes since scoring 17 points in the season opener.

Instead of brooding on the bench since he was a superstar high-school player (he averaged 17.9 points, 19.4 rebounds and 6.9 blocks per game as a senior), Lee stayed ready and scored one more point than he had managed since Jan. 1.

Only Kentucky can bring a talent such as Lee out of mothballs. It’s part of what makes it so dangerous.

BLURRED LINES

The NCAA will debut its “teamcasts” for the Final Four games for U.S. viewers. TBS will air Saturday’s games — the first time they have been on a cable network — but TNT or truTV will also have the special regional broadcasts airing simultaneously. According to Turner Sports and CBS: “The innovative teamcast concept — under the banner ‘Your Team, Your Way’ — will present the game with unprecedented local flavor, including comprehensive team and player storylines, custom music, graphics and show packaging, additional cameras and team-specific replays, custom halftimes with school features and more.” It’s an interesting wrinkle, unceremoniously blurring the line between a neutral broadcast and one with a “homer” feel.

Credit the Carleton Ravens for the Wisconsin Badgers getting this far?

In part, sure. Even the Badgers will say so.

The Ravens hosted Wisconsin last August and were rude hosts, stunning the NCAA squad 95-82, although anyone that follows CIS hoops can’t possibly be surprised by anything Carleton, with 10 titles in the past 12 years under the great Dave Smart, does. His nephew Rob stepped in for that game because Smart was with the Canadian national team.

The Ravens had already beaten Division I teams Towson and Texas Christian before tangling with Bo Ryan’s Badgers and nearly knocked off Syracuse — a team that went on to start its season 25-0 — a couple of days later, eventually falling 69-65.